Reviewing Cable Fails - Real World Fails from Client Networks

[@n8wrl]

Love the drinking fountain fail! I had a client that installed beautiful all-new aluminum direction signs around their building. One blocked a sprinkler and a nice wedge-shaped portion of the lawn turned nice and brown. Took them almost as long to fix it as it did to install them.

[@tciproductions]

Brian, get in touch with me at tcihawaii.com/contact-tci, I have something for ya

[@tciproductions]

Announcing a winner, you got 48 hours to chime in or be replaced! 😀

[@TechInTheCityHonolulu]

@@tciproductions wish it were me!

[@cj7334]

I laughed out loud at the "proud owner" of such a disorganized mess of a network rack.

[@d00dEEE]

Oh, man, I'm dying on that one. 10:30 note the nice "service loop" in the power cord.

[@pcdoc503]

Cargo culting, a new term for me and definitely happens at my work. Loved the descriptions you gave of each fail.

[@sTVG2]

I install soundsystems in churches from time to time and we do a bit of audio over IP. I enjoy watching your videoes because they inspire me to do a good job and learn new strategies and practices for cable managment which can be very useful in audio systems. Thank you!

[@maxbroomfield5392]

Your network cleanups are ASMR for us tech nerds. Always super satisfying seeing a network go from “functional” to absolutely stunning. Keep up the videos man!

[@Greg.M]

There's something about the order of a combed cable bundle coming to to a server rack that is in and of itself clean and neat that just lowers my blood pressure. Everything is so messed up in this world, I find watching a methodical well laid out plan come together very soothing. Judging by all the comments, I'm not the only one. Thanks for the videos and keep up the good work!

[@live.sports717]

I have all these fails and messes in my Network and as a Network engineer I ashamed very much after watching this video. Now I decide to fix it as soon as possible. Thanks

[@npdpdev3421]

Just installed a patch panel and a couple of switches in my own rack! Found a few of your videos very helpful, thx

[@CaptainJonathanG]

As a Director of IT, it is always wonderful to see someone with pride in their work and clarity of focus. Wish you’d shown the before and after for these. :) Thanks for sharing

[@CarlosALeon-im5gs]

I’ve been an IT guy for so many years, from back in the days of coax network headaches. It’s a real pleasure to see the calm after the storm, when you and your crew kill the mess!! Keep that awesome work, feeding the world with your knowledge!

[@gt4rs429]

Proud to say the network guys at my company keep things nice and tidy. I love looking in the networking closets and admiring the work!

[@mariuskreuder]

After four years on my current job, I have finally re-cabled and sorted every network closet, every server room and almost every corner of our office building. Seeing these fails reminds me of all the hours I invested in the process of tidying up what my predecessors neglected. Thanks a lot for your videos, tutorials and guidelines - fingers crossed for your channel to grow and a lot of new subscribers appreciating what you do! :)

[@HullaBrian]

These are some of my favorite videos on KZbin. I'm relatively new to the field (student still) and seeing this stuff just keeps growing my curiosity!

[@psanchez65]

It gave me anxiety watching those network fails, awesome content. Can't wait for the next video.

[@bigstirk4744]

The Mayonnaise hot take was spectacular. I like what you're doing here, and it's been a good review for me. I used to do this work like 20 years back, and your videos always leave me feeling better. Keep up the great work.

[@Legendary_UA]

We installed our network in our new house this past weekend and took a lot of what we did from your videos. Thanks for the expertise.

[@247zerog]

Nothing more satisfying than seeing a completely tidied up rack after having to deal with a complete mess for years😊. Thanks for the videos.

[@GregMrowka]

Love your videos!! Very professional and informative!! My colleagues and I share your videos for inspiration and to set/ follow proper standards to improve the Low Voltage reputation in the field of various DIY Jokers 🤓😎

[@ScottNelsonFromCalifornia]

Derek, love your videos. I’m working on A/V cleanup at my church. Amazing how messy things get if they grow organically over 20+ years!

[@FNG910]

All your videos have helped me doing cleaner work. Thank you.

[@AlanThomas-dd4nc]

I'm not a cable guy, but I'm looking to wire my home properly. I've learned so much from your videos, and like your philosophy of keeping it neat and clean.

[@henderstech]

Thanks for the video. Starting my own business so seeing these videos really help.

[@niccosabella7197]

Stumbled upon your channel when I was planning my own home network. Genuinely helped me out so much.

[@robertjoseph1592]

Derek, I think you nailed the small business wiring approach. I work with a lot of them, and as you guessed the business usually begins with one or two people, maybe a husband and wife or two guys with an idea. Years go by, the business grows, first to 5 or 6 staff, then 12 or 14, and then maybe 25 or 30 people employed. They never bother to assess their datacomm corner or closet, it's just the way it's supposed to be and they don't know it could be more organized and neat.

[@d0natr0n47]

Congrats on all the stuff you've survived seeing over the last year. Your line of work is one I'd love to get into here in Scotland and I'm about to move into my first home and have plans for doing full networking and your channel has been invaluable to me in terms of best practices and ideas for how to organise my '11%%-of-an-idea' I have about cabling it all etc. so thank you for sharing your knowledge and expertise, hope by next year you've either seen less fails (for the sake of your sanity!) or more (for the sake of our entertainment!)

[@tmo5409]

I have personally witnessed a patch panel in the wild that was labeled "To Everywhere." Very fitting for this video. Keep up the great work, TCI!

[@Jbear23]

While not to your business' level of care and quality, finding your videos led me to care more about my home network's and server's maintainability. Some 30 drops, 15 coax, couple servers, router, switch.....gets pretty jumbled over the years. No longer! Learned about cable combs from this channel, a simple 3d print later, a beautiful bundle running across the laundry room ceiling! New network rack, proper patch panel, 3d printed sleds for rack mounting router and fiber ONT, UPS,....feeling much better about it. Thanks for the videos!

[@pharpester]

Wow this was really eye opening about how the mess sprawls. It’s really interesting.

[@robsmith4884]

I watch so many of these and have learned so much about a profession i’ll never call my own. I love the organization of it all. Thank you.

[@THWLR14]

Watching your network rescue videos has been educational. Thanks for all the hard work of making them available for viewing. PS: I don't know if I can agree with your assessment of mayonnaise.

[@alisonferry5989]

Thanks. I think the condo one was my favourite. I can’t imagine troubleshooting it and trying to coordinate a tidy up.

[@sactwnpokr]

I've started watching your videos to improve my own network cabling and cable management skills. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience.

[@johananmendoza2657]

Im just now getting into the field of Networking and came across your videos. I am loving them so far. Thanks

[@notoryous2]

I love this channel. I could watch it for hours. Always amazed on how people see “organization” and how some feel that all is fine. Good luck to all!

[@nrichthof]

Ugh, that one at around @10:00 ... I've been guilty of quickly adding a patch cable somewhere with the best of intentions to come back and tidy it up, only to never do that... but that looks like something a bird will raise a family in!

[@Avalance987]

It's refreshing to see these kind of videos with real world examples and instructional videos, I'm in IT but never had the chance to build a full network cabling as in the country I live mostly I know a friend that can do it situation or companies or vendors don't put much effort in these installations. And it's nice able to see these videos as makes it much easier to understand the know how, the why and see it in real world examples ! Thanks for the videos !!!

[@TheTrulyInsane]

Congrats on passing the year mark, I've really enjoyed watching the chaos!

[@jdwilson8832]

Really appreciate your attention to detail. I have seen some messy telco closets but none like what you have shown.

[@pokute1]

Planning on wiring outdoor cameras and I'm trying to learn how to ground the shielded patch panel at my home, love your videos!

[@TannorNelson]

I loved watching all these fails and with working in the field it is so relatable. Love the videos and work you guys do.

[@The_wolf574]

Very interesting and the ones where you rebuild / fix set ups are particularly rewarding

[@ossianman]

I began to follow your channel a week ago, but its really awsome and useful for me as a IT guy. Thanks for your work!

[@KE5ZZO]

Fail #10 reminded me of a radio station the audio was first distributed via the punchblocks. Then years later the upgraded to audio over IP but when the upgrade was completed … they never removed the old punchblocks and wires. The wiring was undocumented and unlabeled….. I remember the cleaning crew to get a free outlet for their vacuum unplugged what they thought was a ups i4 rooms away and they actually killed power to the master control room for the am station

[@johnnygoodface]

I discovered your channel about a month ago, looked at 5-6 videos, and I honestly enjoyed myself watching (and learning) Good job!

[@movax20h]

I love watching cabling work, both fails, and pretty well done ones. Fortunately in the current office we live in is really superb cabled (copper, fiber, power, etc), and a lot of space to grow (we are using maybe half of 3 racks). We inherited it from other company, but clearly whoever they haired, or haired before they got there was a pro and proud of their work. Previous office was also good, but it was us who did most of the stuff (two sub-rooms for distribution, and then just some runs between them and to access point). Fortunately most runs were already put in place, and also pretty good (and splitting things into two sub-rooms made it even easier to manage). Now we have everything in one room, but cabling is top-notch (all switches at nice comfortable level, cable combing is top notch, colored, zip ties, labels, patch panels, cooling, fire suppression, door locks, etc). I added a custom map and printed sheet of what goes where, just in case we need to rework things or add some stuff, but it was pretty easy to trace everything, put few switches, and connect about 40-50 devices in (some computers, laptops, wifi, cameras, few small servers). We still do have some old stuff (switches, cable modems), but they are fully disconnected, and tucked into separate rack. Just so it does not clutter shelves, and we need to have some backup or run an experiments. And rack at home I have, is a bit of a mess too. Also too small (22 units high), which I tough would be enough. It never is enough ;D And low rack, makes it hard to work on it, because you need to have a chair or constantly bend to do something inside.

[@The113End]

I really enjoy watching network setups. There's lots to learn from them. I'm just starting and wish I could learn under the experts. It makes me want to organize my baby network. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

[@devonrdlee]

I appreciate seeing the messes you've experienced. Makes the messy work I've been working on improving not look so bad in comparison 🤠

[@IvanPerez1]

Love your work! And the detail like the grounding aspect. I would have never thought of that!

[@NikolayUnguzov]

Finally someone to show what I see everywhere! I like to fix these wherever possible.

[@wolf5115206]

That’s great! I’m the IT admin for a church and it’s been a mess trying to clean up a few networking closets here. Some PCs are running XP.

[@TheHockeydrums]

I’m willing to put money on mayo being a precursor to some of those fails.

[@blakebudnick9045]

Love your videos showing how a little hard work and a can do attitude you can fix poor networking work man ship and make something beautiful.

[@bobzone09]

Truly validating to see cabling thousands of miles away from my current home in the US Midwest and see so many familiar sights lol. I've never been to Hawaii but I have SEENT these setups 🧐🧐🧐

[@KarlCollard]

This was fun to watch. My wife is worried that the network I'm planning in our new house will look like some of these

[@erichbarrantes1208]

Derek,i love your videos, i work for a nation wide company as a PM and i really want to get myself into the field but my company wont give me an opportunity to do so because they need me in the office, so ive been self training and doing gigs on my own after work, and i can say watching your videos has helper to be better thank you for putting them out and helping new struggling techs enter the field and tackle some projects i will keep watching and supporting your videos!

[@sreyb]

One of these setups looked very familiar hahaha. I eagerly await the day I will be allowed to clean up our sever room and get rid of all the unnecessary equipment that clogs my brain when I have to troubleshoot.

[@Hatch3dLabs]

Thankfully the new office my employer moved into was pretty organized in the IDF. I then had the pleasure of removing 90% of all the racking. REALLY clean in there now!

[@quinnansted2]

I do love this type of content with the before and after photos and videos.

[@legavlor6746]

Some of these reminded me of how our server racks looked when I started working at my current job. Very happy to say they don't look that bad anymore!

[@harleymcclure9802]

Back when I had a day job, I saw many of these fails. Fail 3 - Got to put the jack above the level of a normal pallet- say 4 or 5 feet. Patch cords are cheap and easy to replace. Fail 8 - We called it FIIW: F*ck It, It Works Fail 9 - We had a room like this. The building was wired by the renovation contractor and the jumpers were done by in house techs. Fail 10 - Network Archeology. After a new contractor took over from my shop I warned them that this switch in the middle of a former server room was still doing things, but I was ignored and they shut it down and were in the process of cutting the cables when they realized that half the NEW server room was off line.

[@d00dEEE]

Derek, you really need to make this a regular feature. Every year or six months do another edition, especially the hilarious ones like #8.

[@PeterMoschopoulos]

You are pretty great. I said before that you are my replacement for fibreninja and it still holds true.

[@tciproductions]

I got my work cut out for me to reach his level. Had never seen him before I started this, not sure how he got past me.

[@litmkbsd1802]

I just subscribed to your channel a couple of weeks ago, and I look forward to seeing you fix messy networks. It's like therapy. We're going to have to fix ours at work soon too, so I get my kicks watching you guys do it. :)

[@gerardlp640]

#9 what kind of connectors are those? I mean the one at 12:01 - green cable with milky white connector?

[@tciproductions]

I think they may be one of the Amphenol brand subtypes from the 90’s that didn’t catch on. There were several ‘modular’ connectors meant to convert between phones and LAN but RJ-45 beat them all in the market. I could be wrong though, I don’t recognize them.

[@tomhill9027]

Love the fails! As a 38 yr Master Plumber here on the North Shore of Boston,, I run into the equivalent in my field. As in your field and in mine, it usually happens over time. Both of our trades keep people LITERALLY in business. No IT, no plumbing, no heating...? Thanks for the great content!

[@mrijohn251]

Without any experience doing network cabling I wired my whole house. Although there is some issues with it, I have learned along the way what not to do. And I have used those lessons to do better for people I have help wire their houses.

[@gficherPlays]

Great video! These cable fails really highlight the importance of proper network infrastructure.

[@konstantinosgrk8156]

Network rehabs are the best content for us IT guys I think. And the longer the video the better. Keep up the food work

[@spock9645]

Another great video Derek, You have gotten me back into wanting to do some installs / cleanups of my own. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us.

[@JuanPablo.547]

It would be impossible to tell you how bad I need that tester...saddly I'ts really hard to get them in stores at a reasonable price in my country! Thank ypu so much for continue teaching us!

[@ericbrock9387]

It's cool to see the fails, and seeing how your team resolved would be interesting! Thanks!

[@Beta117]

Been finally setting up my dream network room/closet recently and have come across your videos a few times now. I like seeing your commercial installs!

[@ninjapayne]

I like how you acknowledged how some of them may have started out before they got to this point. Lol at the mayonnaise.

[@alohava]

Wow some of these look tough! I just re-did my own home network so it’s not going to be on your list anytime soon. Agree about mayonnaise vs butter!

[@brianwood5220]

It's so easy to live with chaos. It starts small and before you know it, you've got a monster on your hands. And who wants to tackle that. One day, One day.

[@CaptainFuchs]

I cant believe the lack of care in some of these I'm not even in networking yet but my amateur jobs take so much more care than these. Great video.

[@EnriqueVillarMavila]

nice jobs and great explanation from you in every video. Thanks.

[@johnduldulao7682]

The before and after photos on this channel are so satisfying.

[@alexb5275]

Love the video, making me think twice about all my “quick fixes” that come back to bite my in the butt 😂

[@SyberPrepper]

I'm working on cleaning up and documenting my network so it never becomes that bad. I have seen similar examples of what you've shown over the years. Sometimes the boxes are stacked in such a way you can't believe they haven't fallen over. How do people sleep at night? Great video and thanks.

[@uweschachtschabel2122]

Nice to see that things are equal around the globe. Greetings from the other side of this planet (Germany)

[@thedananimal]

Derek, thanks so much for your channel. I really enjoy watching your work it inspires me to try to keep doing better.

[@802106139]

I worked for a very large corporate and most of the server rooms I went it, you'd come across somewhere in the room what looks like a kids "My first network" school project...

[@d00dEEE]

The best ones are where they wanted to use every crayon color in the box!

[@jsoriano10]

Another great video you posted Derek. I'm new to this kind work. All your videos are a big help to me, I'm learning a lot of your tips and technics. Thank you very much for sharing and I hope you have many more upcoming videos. Thanks

[@fredtanner-ve2re]

watch out for cargo-culting around the 15 minute mark. very nice video series.

[@KevinCollins-j9x]

Thank you for sharing this video. There is definitely work in networking still as more and more places to online.

[@ElFidel]

Why don't you see elephants hiding in trees? Because they're so good at it! LOL Great video!

[@chags9307]

Really nice to see some of what not to do as I am planning my setup. Thanks! Love your vids.

[@amusady]

Beginning my entrepreneurial journey as a designer and installer as taught me to always give room for future system expansion. I believe the failures like these are on facility managers and in-house IT-managers.

[@troystory7389]

@9:28 - Fail 8: "Proud to be Different" Wow! 🤣The owner requested us to make a bigger mess, so we did. LOL! This clip was my favorite.

[@AllanBontjer]

Hi Derek, videos give me insprtaion to say no to soem of those jobs. I've had a few complete cleanups. Like your work. Allan

[@pawpaw7646]

Great video again, Derek. Your videos are informative and concise. Keep up the good work! Bad cable management = bad network.

[@ZacharyFoster-su9jy]

Love your channel! Keep the videos coming. They help me learn and be better at my job.

[@michaelpelley2815]

I think I've seen an example of each one of these over my 30 year career! I show these to one of my structured cable guys and they say "I can fix that - CHALLENGE!" But I didn't see any IBM Twinaxial or bus-and-tag gear 😛

[@MatsGefvert]

#10 - cargo culting - is a fairly accurate picture of what our production software system looks like. I'm a senior dev/architect and every once in a while I take some unscheduled time to go on a rampage and remove legacy stuff no longer in use.

[@philippw1971]

Thanks for sharing. Did my home network recently and took some inspiration from your videos.

[@stephenmartin7313]

Enjoying the videos, and learning a lot. I am just getting into this type of work myself.

[@ValNov]

I have the same bundles of wires from GPON device to router and NAS. Add a UPS to the mix. I've been thinking for a long time how to organize them there.

[@RicardoJimenezlmhc]

Have watched a bunch of your videos. They are very informative for someone starting out. Been thinking of starting a business in networking or installation. When people ask about starting a hobby and they have the skills set. I point out network and jnstallation

[@it4offices]

seen so many sites like these, would be good to see some before and after pictures from your work